In a letter to herself, an exercise assigned to all the scholars, Mackenzie wrote, I know that my first 18 years on this planet will always be a part of who I am, but how do I move on and start this new chapter of my life without pretending like it never happened?, Elizabeth Cannon, the senior associate director of Civic House, where the program is based, sensed that Mackenzie was more vulnerable than she acknowledged. Mackenzies friend Kate Minorini told me, Mackenzies mom was using the Whitfield buzz bookthe school directoryto plead her case, so the rumor mill would have happened regardless, but a lot of the hearsay seemed to be based off the defense arguments of our classmates dad. There were rumors that Mackenzies bruises were self-inflicted, that she had thrown herself down the stairs to get attention. She said she had never been party to such an interrogation, he said. Brandt later noted that Morrison had not asked how Mackenzie was doing or showed any emotion., Brandt also asked Morrison about the episode, which Mackenzie had reported the day before, when Mackenzie had woken up to Lovelace touching her breasts. She gave with few strings attached. The week before, she had started work at an investment firm, with her future husband, Mr. Bezos. In one scene, Luthers daughter and the undertakers son steal away during a wedding at the funeral home and kiss next to the rolling shelves for storing bodies.. It is a deliberate indifference to evidence. Smith and Hillier signed the grievance, too. If there were causes she supported but did not want the world to know about, she could simply choose not to include them in the Medium post. I really dont have words, Mackenzie wrote in an e-mail to a mentor at the Penn Womens Center. But her mother and Wendy White apparently stayed in touchin an e-mail after Mackenzie was questioned, Morrison said that she was saddened to learn that M stuck to her story. She wrote, She has become emboldened over time, and has been successful with her evolving tale for 6 yrs. She offered that White or her staff could visit her home, in St. Louis. Amazon was Mr. Bezos dream, and Ms. Scott did not give up on her own dream of writing novels. Ruderman acknowledged that Mackenzie didnt use those exact words, but she said that Mackenzie did describe herself as an F.G.L.I. MacKenzie continued writing and developed an early but lasting propensity for deep research. Last year, Ms. Scott recalled that period and the help she received to make it through. Two months later, in December, 2021, she filed a lawsuit against Penn, accusing it of retaliating against her and discrediting her for Penns institutional protection. By then, Gutmann had been appointed the U.S. Commentary was overwhelmingly positive, but philanthropy experts raised significant questions. The universitys pleading portrayed Mackenzie as a discredited person who cannily concocted a tale of abuse: as a child, she had regular temper tantrums, beyond the normal range for an adolescent. Then she had claimed to fall ill at school and presented a fictitious account of abuse by her mother. According to the pleading, her claims of abuse kept her family muzzled, leaving her in control of her narrative., Four days after the response was filed, the Chronicle published its article, giving ample weight to each side and quoting from the universitys pleading. They didnt respond, though Mackenzies biological mother has denied the allegations of abuse. The university, in its response to Mackenzies lawsuit, referred to Mackenzies mother as an accomplished physician and claimed that a court had found her allegations not to be credible. We argued about the case, I advised him that this was ridiculous, and this had to be a status thing. A few weeks later, the prosecuting attorney decided not to press charges against Lovelace, either, citing a lack of evidence. In November, 2020, the Rhodes Trust named Mackenzie one of thirty-two scholar-elects from the United States. Couldnt wait to hop in the car.. The chosen charities were told they could not announce the gifts until the donor did. You start to think that maybe you had it wrong and that maybe it actually did happen the way that they say it did, she wrote. We would never have believed any of it if we werent living it, she wrote, adding that Mackenzie had directed her masterpiece perfectly. One of Morrisons sisters also wrote White an e-mail, saying that Mackenzie deliberately tried to frame Carrie and planted evidence around the house, including her own blood.. When I founded Penn First, it was for students just like her, and her membership and leadership in the club was welcomed with open arms, she explained. Mr. Jewett had been scheduled to teach this academic year, according to a former colleague, but at the end of the 2021 school year, just a few months after the marriage was announced, he left Lakeside. The two friends painted, with Ms. Scott producing a memorable portrait of her younger brother. READ ALSO: Chris Kaba Family: Parents, Wife, Children, Siblings In addition, she would have to take a mandatory leaveto get needed counseling and supportbefore the university would grant her M.S.W. The university offered her a deal: as Raffaele described it to Mackenzie in an e-mail, the university would take no action against your undergraduate degree, if she gave up the Rhodes, along with her Latin honors (shed graduated summa cum laude). Norton wrote a letter to Gutmann, Penns president, warning that the university had been made complicit in a long campaign of continuing abuse. Norton says that Gutmann did not respond. As you know, shes mentally ill. But heres the thing, Webb said. Her sudden spate of giving has now reached 1,257 groups, from little-known charities to mainstream organizations like Habitat for Humanity, which last month received $436 million, her largest known gift. investigator, Mackenzie, and her mother. Dr. Espelage said she advised Ms. Scott to draw on real stories and engage celebrities as ambassadors. A small team led by a recent Princeton graduate helped produce video testimonials by a range of public figures, including Monica Lewinsky and the actor Jared Leto. Or even to write everything down in here. Friends remembered the couple as fun loving, big on books but also other forms of culture. I dont ever want to cause her any pain or anything, which is why Ill probably end up burning this, Mackenzie wrote in the journal. In the meantime, an administrative law judge for the S.E.C. Because Mackenzie had always been kind of trotted out by our school as this shining example of a successful alumna.. students, and, though she didnt attend the program, she began going to events hosted by Penn First, an F.G.L.I. She was MacKenzie Scott, the novelist upending philanthropy. Though the Trust said that Mackenzies abuse allegations were beyond the scope of its investigation, it repeated an argument originally advanced by Morrisons lawyer at trial: that there were discrepancies between Mackenzies medical records and an essay shed written to get into collegeevidence, it said, of a broader pattern of misrepresentation. Down-to-earth! She had become important with no black-tie fund-raisers and no velvet dresses. Mackenzie may have centered certain aspects of her background to the exclusion of othersfor reasons we are certain she feels are validin a way that creates a misimpression, the report concluded. That same year, her mother made headlines in the local papers fighting to save neighborhood trees threatened by Dutch elm disease. Morrison told officers that her daughter asked her to extract some gum from her hair as she stood at the top of a staircase, and as she tried to, Fierceton jerked, fell down two steps, and then sat down. The thought that this information may have been withheld from you felt utterly horrifying, Mackenzie wrote. After three weeks at the hospital, Mackenzie was discharged into a foster home. Within a half hour, police officers arrived at the hospital. Or the propaganda campaign that they can put behind her story?. Mackenzie Morrison was born Mackenzie Terrell but took her mothers name after her father, Billy Terrell, who worked in soap operas, left. My mom, Mackenzie responded. Fierceton, who was born Mackenzie Morrison, grew up with her mother in St. Louis, Missouri where she attended a $30,000-a-year private school A new report At the end of the interview, she offered to connect Mackenzie with support. She learned last week that she had lost her appeal. The firm was covering his personal and business expenses, as well as four mortgages on three properties. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. Her mother, Carrie Morrison, gave a very different story of what happened that day. Fendell did not accept the explanation, and she later told Mackenzie that she was legally obligated to notify Missouris Department of Social Services. The district leaders and the community came together on Thursday to watch Mackenzie Morrison receive her diploma after her family car was hit on the way to No big house. After noticing that the childrens book Watership Down was full of specific plant names, she hopped on my Schwinn and rode to the library to hunt down a botanical encyclopedia, and for the next year, all my stories were stuffed with extraneous mentions of trees and flowers, as she wrote in the afterword. In college, a loan from a friend helped keep her from dropping out. People who had once supported her were finding excuses to turn their backs or walk away., Mackenzie moved into a second foster home, because the first was chaotic; while she was there, the other foster child had attempted suicide. After filling a notebook with lists of surnames that she thought sounded bold (Fairstone, Stronghill, Silverfield), she submitted a petition with the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, changing her name to Mackenzie Fierceton. With the sought-after prize of Ms. Morrison as her thesis adviser, Ms. Scott had written a 168-page work of fiction called The Fathering Water, in which the father, Luther Augery, keeps hidden that he has quit his job and settled for a low-paying one. Her room, on the third floor, was mostly bare, though she had hung seventeen photographs, mostly of college friends. Yet, I was wrong. It felt like such a calculated move to exert power over me, she said. She said it felt like an attack on a student. Licht was disturbed that the conversation appeared to have been provoked by a mother possibly seeking vengeance. (The university has said that Winkelsteins questions were appropriate and that her manner was not aggressive. The billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott once recounted, in a television interview, a Chinese folk tale sometimes known as The Lost Horse. The story is about the reversals of fortune a farmer experiences after his prized stallion runs away. She was abused, but there is not enough blood. Penn had once celebrated her story, but, when it proved more complex than institutional categories for disadvantage could capture, it seemed to quickly disown her. After Mackenzie had been in the hospital for a week, Brandt met Morrison at the police station and asked again about the circumstances of Mackenzies fall. And we all have enormous energy to devote to helping and protecting those we love.. She was listed alongside the graduating seniors in the class of 1987 yearbook, and where their colleges were named it said merely that she was bound for England. Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role, she wrote in an essay last year, one in a series of deliberate public communiqus on her giving. degree. Ms. Scott was attending the Hotchkiss boarding school in Connecticut, while her older brother was at Georgetown University. She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healingan obvious sign of child abuse.. Records show that Mr. Tuttle made a small contribution $25 to the Ron DeSantis campaign for Florida governor that year, while Mr. and Ms. Tuttle had each previously contributed $500 to the Republican National Committee.